“We pass and leave you lying. No need for rhetoric, for funeral music, for melancholy bugle-calls. No need for tears now, no need for regret.We took our risk with you; you died and we live. We take your noble gift, salute for the last time those lines of pitiable crosses, those solitary mounds, those unknown graves, and turn to live our lives out as we may.Which of us were fortunate--who can tell? For you there is silence and cold twilight drooping in awful desolation over those motionless lands. For us sunlight and the sound of women's voices, song and hope and laughter, despair, gaiety, love--life.Lost terrible silent comrades, we, who might have died, salute you.”

“Who Honors those we love for the very life we live? Who sends monsters to kill us...and at the same time sings that we'll never die? Who teaches us what's real...and how to laugh at lies? Who decides why we live and what we'll die to defend? Who chains us...and who holds the key that can set us free? It's you. You have all the weapons you need. Now fight!”

“And finally this questionThe mystery of whose story it will be.Of who draws the curtain.Who is it that chooses our steps in the dance?Who drives us mad? Lashes us with whips and crowning us with victory when we survive the impossible.Who is it... that does all these things?Who honors those we love for thevery life we live?Who sends monsters to kill us, and at the same time sings that we'll never die?Who teaches us what's real and how tolaugh at lies?Who decides why we live and what we'll die to defend?Who chains us and who holds the key that can set us free?It's you...You have all the weapons you need...Now fight!”

“As a parent? My fear is that when we die, we'll have to watch all those moments in our lives when we were short-tempered with our children, all the times they needed our love and and we didn't give it, all those times we were distracted, or in a bad mood, all the times we were angry or impatient.”

“Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them - we can love completely without complete understanding.”

“May our daily choices be a reflection of our deepest values, and may we use our voices to speak for those who need us most, those who have no voice, those who have no choice.”